Which motherboard for Athlon 64?

[ttenfjord]

Hey, I'm currently in the process of buying an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0 GHz (1 MB cache) CPU, but I'm not sure which motherboard I should choose. I'm standing between these ones:

- Abit KV8-MAX3
- Asus K8V DELUXE
- Asus K8V
- EPoX EP-8HDA3+
- MSI K8T NEO-FIS2R

Which of these 5 is the best one? Also, maybe you could give me an advice what RAM I should get?

Thanks.

 

[Crashman]

The Soyo K8USA is the best A64 board thus far.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[jcarte01]

hi

they did a review of some of your selection <A HREF="http://www6.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20031201/index.html" target="_new"> here </A>. I (as a 1st time builder) just built up my new system with the asus k8v delux, my reasoning was that it had more features than the one tom recommends. i went for two 512MB <A HREF="http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?action=info&AvdID=1&CatID=17&sku=120858&view=detailed" target="_new"> corsair twinx pro 3200 </A> I'm not big into overclocking so getting the last nth amount of performance out wasn't that big an issue, i was looking for something with more options. One thing i noticed when fitting the two 160gig seagates (as raid 0) was that the capacity using the via raid controler was less (about 295 approx if memory serves) than the promise controler (which was the full 320gigs) both of these measurements were taken before formating. once formated the promise made 305 gigs available for use, which i partioned 290-15 for xp and linux respectivly. I am currently investigating the via/promise decrepancy. if you have any other questions drop me a line

jc

Homer: There’s 3 ways to do things, the right way, the wrong way, and the max power way.
Bart: isn’t that the wrong way.
Homer: yea but faster.

 

[HadesZA]

The MSI is great, excellent performance and great features

 

[speeduk]

Im using the msi mobo here. Top performance and stability and overclocks decent too. Running 213mhz fsb stock voltage and 2-3-3-6 ram timings.

Probably the most stable (so far) motherboard i have ever owned!

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7523662" target="_new"> MY A64 System </A>

 

[arussell]

I just ordered my A64 system, and I got the MSI mobo. I did a ton of research(official reviews + customer reviews) and it looks to be a very good mobo.

 

[Ganj]

What about nforce 3 based boards?I need to build a Athlon 64 rig for a client and I trust nvidia much more then VIA.
Btw that MSI neo board is based on a SiS chipset isnt it?Would that be recommended as an alternative to VIA?

 

[speeduk]

Its via not sis. And because the mem controller is onboard the cpu the chipset isnt as relevant as it used to be. Except for overclocking.

My MSI board is just superb. Excellent performance and stability I'm just so pleased I got this mobo and my 3200 cpu.

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7523662" target="_new"> MY A64 System </A>

 

[pat]

I would really have a look at the soyo k8usa board...seriously!

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[Crashman]

These guys are idiots, they've been sucking VIA's pecker so long they don't know a good board or chipset when they see one, they just follow the hype.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>